Among them all, they've been making metal for 40 years, selling more than 78 million albums worldwide. "It's a really special moment, to get these bands together," says Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, speaking from a hotel room in Washington, D.C., on the second night of the tour. "It's a bit of rock 'n' roll history because it'll never happen again, and it's only for a limited amount of North American dates."
The tour is as exceptional as Nostradamus, a two-CD, 23-track journey through the life of the controversial, 16th-century prophet via strings, synthesized guitars, and atmospheric musical interludes set alongside Priest's screaming twin-guitar assaults and steady, cannon-boom percussion. Lyrically, the album is more biographical/philosophical than ethereal.
"We could have done two kinds of records," Halford says. "We could have focused on the prophecies and visions — because he had many, many of those — or we could do what we ended up doing, which was to talk a little bit about his personal experiences."
"Five hundred years ago, he was going through some tough times," Halford continues. "He was rejected by a lot of people who thought he was dabbling in the black arts . . . the church authorities looked down on him and banished him into exile. He got looked on as a bit of a freak, you know? And we thought, 'Oh, that's what we felt like sometimes, in heavy metal.'"
Halford also points out that Nostradamus was, in fact, a metalhead. "[He] also dabbled in alchemy, the process of trying to turn base metals into gold. He had a kind of metal laboratory, working silver and gold and copper. So, he was a metalhead!"
And what does Halford think about Nostradamus' alleged psychic abilities and prophecies? "I don't really know," he says. "There are people that believe in the 'Phoenix Lights,' you know? I try to keep an open mind. I just think he's a very intriguing, mysterious man, and I think the fact that we're talking about him 500 years later is pretty remarkable."
